Did you miss the early morning news? We have concocted a recap to help you see more clearly.
It should have been a big party. The Olympic flame arrived in Tokyo this Friday for a ceremony in an empty stadium, the day after the decision by the Japanese authorities and the organizers of the Olympic Games to ban spectators from most venues for fear of the Covid-19. Exactly two weeks before the opening ceremony of the Games scheduled for July 23, the Olympic flame was carried on stage in a lantern and symbolically handed over to Yuriko Koike, the governor of Tokyo, in the rain.
They won their case. The pilots Pascal Fauret and Bruno Odos, sentenced to six years in prison at first instance in the so-called “Air Cocaine” case, were acquitted on Thursday by the Aix-en-Provence Special Assize Court of Appeal. For the other defendants in this trial, the Court of Appeal confirmed the sentences handed down at first instance: the managers of the aviation company Pierre-Marc Dreyfus and Fabrice Alcaud were sentenced to 6 years in prison and Ali Bouchareb, sponsor of the drug trafficking, according to the prosecution, was sentenced to 18 years imprisonment. The latter’s driver, Michel Ristic, was acquitted, as in the first instance.
The noose is tightening around the assassins of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse. Police announced on Thursday the arrests of 15 Colombians and two Americans of Haitian descent, as controversy mounted in the country over the role of the police and the legitimacy of the transitional executive. The assassination of President Moïse, riddled with bullets at his home on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday, was carried out by an armed commando of 28 assailants, the country’s police announced Thursday evening at a press conference. At least six Colombians involved are believed to be ex-soldiers, Colombia’s defense minister said.